Dropzone dev Sparkypants lays off staff

Word is spreading today that Sparkypants, developer of the free-to-play real-time strategy game Dropzone, has laid off a number of staffers from its studio in Baltimore, Maryland.

The news comes courtesy of multipleTwitterposts from former employees today, one of whom noted that "most of Sparkypants has been laid off." Gamasutra has reached out to Sparkypants representatives for confirmation and further comment.

As always, if you or someone you know has been affected by these layoffs, you can email Gamasutra to share your story confidentially.

The studio itself was founded in 2011 and released Dropzone onto Steam's Early Access service early this year. The game was built using the studio's in-house Sparkle Engine, which is designed specifically for competitive RTS/MOBA games.

Update: Sparkypants founder Jason Coleman gave the following statement to Gamasutra.

"Yes. Today we made the hard decision to say goodbye to 14 talented Sparkies as we adjusted for the current and anticipated development needs of Dropzone and other projects. Any companies lucky enough to hire them will be glad they did and they will be sorely missed at Sparkypants."